Beginnings
by jessa-beth
Summary: ONESHOT: Remus was a very small boy when he recieved the bite. Here's the story of how it happened.


**A/N:** Yeah, I don't know what age Remus actually was when he was bitten, but in this story he's about five. I donno how to write in the thoughts of a five-year-old, but I tried, while still trying to make it kinda like Remus. So, here Remus breaks rules for the first time ever, and he LIKES it... even though in the end he ends up bitten. hee hee. Yeah... so, anyway, I really don't like this story, but I wanted to do something like this, so I did, and I may as well post it now that it's done. Oh, and I completely made up the father's name, John. I just know that's Remus' middle name, so... yaeh. XD OH! And I apologize for the abrupt, bad ending.

* * *

"Remus?"

The boy jumped at the sound of his name, and fumbled with the sheets he was tangled in. "Mummy?" he called into his blurry room.

"Remus, it's just me," said his mother's calming voice. He lay back down in his bed. "You've been asleep a long time, honey," she said quietly.

He rubbed his eyes, and turned under his covers to see his clock by his bedside. It read, 5:00. The numbers meant nothing to him, as he didn't fully understand the concept of hours in a day. "Why?" he asked. "How long was my nap?" Remus yawned, and pulled the covers around his tiny form, and over his head. The air was cold and ruthless, but his bed was warm and comforting, and he didn't want to ever leave it.

"You've been asleep since two, Remus. Dinner is going to be in a couple of minutes." She sat down on his bed beside the small shaking lump that she knew was her son. With a laugh, she asked, "Would you like me to pick you up and take you downstairs so you don't have to walk?"

The top of Remus' head poked out from behind his sheets, just enough so that his baby soft dirty-blonde hair and his big brown eyes were visible, but nothing else. He nodded, feeling simply too comfortable to get up. "Okay, come on, sleepy head!" she said, and stood. She lifted her son into the air with a grunt, and told him in a slightly amused tone, "You're getting way too big for me to be carrying you places anymore, so don't expect this all the time!"

Giggling, Remus clung to his mother's shoulder as she started down the stairs to their dining room. She placed him in a chair at the table, one that had been magically heightened so that he could reach the table properly, and bustled off to the kitchen.

A quiet child, Remus liked to listen. When he heard his parents talking, he listened, and didn't interrupt. It was how he'd managed to learn to speak younger than most. He already knew fairly complicated words when he had been only a year old. His parents' friends were always impressed with the calamity of their son, his innocent behavior, his wide vocabulary.

Tonight, Remus sat back in his chair, listening unconcernedly to a heated conversation his parents were having in the kitchen to his left. He smiled to himself, and hummed distractedly, not really understanding or caring what they were saying, but interested just to take in the sounds. "You don't seem to realize what a threat he could be, dear, you don't—" his father was saying in a strained whisper.

"_Please_, John, this isn't the time," came his mother's worried voice, in the same strained tone as his father.

"I think this is _exactly_ the right time, actually. You realize Greyback likes to come after children, and at the age that Remus is, we've got to be especially careful!"

"John, please, just… _stop_! We can talk about this later, but Remus is in the other room right now, just—"

"But we've got to _warn_ him! He's got to know about the danger he could be facing if he so much as _leaves the house_! After what I did… Greyback will _not_ just let that go! He'll come after Remus! We need to protect him; don't you understand what Greyback is capable of?"

"Yes, John, I'm very much aware, thank you, but Remus is _five years old_! We don't need to tell him all the gruesome details of—"

"Alright, alright, fine. Look, just… he's a good kid, he'll obey us if we tell him to not go outside, won't he?

The hurried whispers faltered, and there was a clattering of forks and knives against plates to fill the tense silence that had filled the house since their voices had been extinguished. Within several moments, Remus' parents had stridden into the dining room, and his mother placed a plate full of pork chops in front of him. "Thank you," Remus said happily, and began to eat. He could feel two sets of eyes watching him while he ate, and knew his parents must be staring at him, because his was the only fork he could hear stabbing his meat.

Starting to get annoyed by the silence, he decided to give them opportunity to finish their conversation that they'd been having mere moments ago. "Who's Greyback, daddy?" he asked. The atmosphere suddenly grew thick, and unusually tense. He looked up from his food in time to see his mother shoot a very dirty look at his father.

"Well," his father began nervously. "You see… Greyback is a… well… he's a bad man, put it that way. He's a very bad man, and he likes to…"

Remus' mother cut him off. "He likes to play really mean tricks on children, and make them sad," she said hurriedly. His father looked down at his untouched plate almost guiltily. "We want to make sure he can't play any of those mean tricks on you, so we'd feel much better if you just promised us that you won't go outside for a while, alright?"

"How long, mummy?" he asked curiously.

"Uh… I don't know, sweetheart. It may be a while, or it may not be…" she looked quickly at her husband, who took over for her there.

"We just really want to keep you safe, Remus. You can understand that, right?" His eyes were dark and kind as usual, but looked rather sullen and sad tonight.

Remus nodded. He restrained from asking what kinds of tricks this man played on kids, but he decided he'd rather not know. He liked being inside, anyway. It was warmer in here. Outside it was cold, and snowy, and not so fun. Besides, he didn't have many friends that he really was dying to go see. Being quiet and shy, Remus didn't make many friends. He couldn't wait to go to Hogwarts, where there were more people to meet, but that wouldn't be for several more long years. He hoped to make friends at Hogwarts. His parents had met there, and they spoke of the place wistfully, a dreamy look in their eyes. He simply couldn't wait to go there himself, but was obviously much too young to start any school yet, so he had a long way to go before he was accepted.

When dinner was over, Remus ran down the hall to his back door and peered out through the tiny window, standing on tip-toe. The horizon was a dull red, and cast a bloody glow over the blindingly white snow. His mother's flowerbed, however, was magically protected, and the roses and other beautiful flowers were still flourishing as though it were a perfect spring's day. The snow had stopped falling, but Remus remembered watching the troublesome flakes bouncing off of the flower petals with amusement. He giggled as he remembered this image, and the sound alerted his mother to where he was.

"Remus, what are you doing over there? I thought we just told you not to leave the house!"

"I'm not, I was looking! Your flowers aren't snowy!" he whined, protesting the injustice of being accused of going outside, when he was quite clearly standing _inside_.

"Yes, well… just keep away from the doors if you can help it, alright?" She looked more worried than Remus had ever seen her, and he wanted to say something to her to help ease her nerves. But he was only five, and didn't know how people usually did this, so he simply shrugged off the idea, and settled with telling her "yes, mummy," and hurrying off up the stairs to his bedroom.

Glaring out his window, he began to question his parents' instructions in his mind. The snow below him looked so inviting, and his parents' orders so vague. This Greyback fellow was just one man in many, and he, only one boy. It didn't make sense to Remus. He'd never been a bad boy before, why did he deserve to be locked up inside when the snow looked like such fun to play in? It was cold, yes, but it was also light and fluffy and soft looking. It wasn't fair, he thought, it wasn't right! He wanted to get out; he wanted to go play in the yard. It was just his own back yard, there couldn't be any danger out there, could there?

Remus began to fidget with a small hole in his bed sheets as he sat squirming on it, still staring blankly out the window. The pink glow on the horizon made the snow look only more exciting. His tiny fist clenched in his lap, and felt unusually jittery.

Feeling suddenly rebellious—something he had never felt in his life because, quite frankly, the idea of breaking rules terrified him—he grabbed his small jacket from his closet, and tip toed from the room. He slid along the wall as he quietly moved down the stairs. He had to be quiet, or his parents might get angry that he was trying to go outside when they said not to.

Having reached the bottom landing, he scurried down the hall. Miraculously, he very soon found himself again at the back door. Grinning widely, he lifted himself onto tip toe again to peer out the little window. The snow now shone with the blinding orange light from the setting sun. The full moon was small, but visible in the slowly darkening sky, and with a giggle, Remus reached down to his wet boots beside the door, and pulled them on excitedly. Wiggling his toes, warm and snug in the enclosures around his feet, he leapt back up to a standing position, and with a deep breath, opened the door.

It felt wonderful. The sensation of doing something against the rules, mingled with the cold winter air against his face, made all his worries suddenly disappear. With a strangled laugh, he leapt forward into the snow. His tiny child's body flopped blissfully in the softness, and he snuggled into it, letting the flakes invade his line of vision and tangle in his hair. Remus swung his arms and legs around on the ground, making marks around him like an angel. He stared up into the dark sky to find that it had turned a deep blue, and was slowly turning the night's usual black. He grinned up at the stars, and the great shimmering orb above that was the moon. Full moons are beautiful, he thought pleasantly.

Remus sat up, and looked around. The yard was small, as was their house, but he loved it. There was nothing in their tiny yard but a little swing set beside a patch of his mother's flowers on the small amount of bare ground that was the yard. The ground was laden with snow now, and none of the usual grass could be seen beneath him. He sighed happily. The winter was so beautiful; Remus couldn't believe he had agreed to not go outside ever, not when the world was so beautifully frosted with snow.

The snap of a twig brought him back to reality. He looked around in surprise, and called, "Who's that?" He wasn't afraid. There wasn't anything that could hurt him in his own back yard.

His mind found itself lingering on that bad man who played tricks on children, but he shrugged it off. What was one silly man against his two strong parents just inside the door? But despite himself, Remus continued to scan the surrounding trees and bushes. "Somebody's there?" he asked the air again.

And then, without warning, it happened.

Something huge… something enormous and grey leapt out of what seemed like no where, and pounced on him. Giant paws twice the size of his own hands pressed hard on Remus' chest and knocked him flat. All the wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn't breathe. Thick, black claws dug their way into his chest with ease, his gentle child flesh soft, and simple to penetrate. He let out a choked gasp, but couldn't breathe enough to scream. His chest was void of breath, but his ribs still had enough feeling to be bruised and sore. Searing pain shot up and down his body, and cold blood began to soak his front. Hot air shot into Remus' face with each breath the creature took, and he caught the sight of yellowing, bloodied fangs, the snout of the beast curling as it snarled viciously at him. Remus tried to whimper, he tried to scream, but nothing came out.

Cursing himself for having left the house at all, he closed his eyes, trying to regain his breath as the monster kept his body hard and still, hovering above his own. Quite suddenly, he felt it stir, and a pang of terror shot through his tiny body as he shook, sweating despite the freezing cold snow that engulfed him.

He took a deep breath, with all the strength he could muster, and screamed.

A horrible ripping sound met his ears, and hot liquid began to flow freely from his throat. Blood drenched the being's fangs as it sunk its mouth deeply into the neck of the little boy, who writhed, and gagged, his eyes rolling, but could not make a sound.

A cold growl echoed around Remus, and it was all he could hear, the scent of wet dog, drool, and unbearably overpowering blood, surrounding and filling him, making him feel sick. His hands shook, his skin deathly pale, slick and sweaty. He felt the pressure lifting off his body, and tried harder to gasp for air, only making the unnatural cold sweep over him more forcefully, and the pain shoot through him faster. Movement around him, and distant screams, told him that his parents had come. He didn't know where the beast was, if it had left, or if it was going to attack them next, but a second later, their voices were right above him, sobbing and retching horribly. He felt hands lifting him from the snowy ground, which was becoming steadily soaked with his blood, the purest white turning a deep red. The colors swirled together, and Remus' vision was becoming more blurry. He wanted to cry so badly, he wanted to shout, yell, scream, kick, throw a tantrum of pain, but he couldn't move. Pins and needles seemed to be stabbing at him on every inch of his flesh, while his slashed throat bled openly over his father's arms and coat. He was rigid and shaking, his eyes wide in shock and terror, filled with a look of utmost agony.

And then, quite suddenly, he went limp, as a welcoming darkness clouded his sight, and a calm silence replaced his mother's shrieks of worry.


End file.
